Ministries to help ‘stateless’ school kids

The Education and Interior ministries are working together to address the problem of more than 90,000 stateless students nationwide.

Surapong Kongchantuk, a member of an Education Ministry subcommittee coordinating efforts to solve the issue, said that the two ministries are making a concerted effort to ensure these schoolchildren are granted Thai nationality so they can have access to basic rights, particularly public health benefits.

The Interior Ministry has checked the civil registration database system and found that among the 14.8 million children registered in the database, 90,708 children did not have 13-digit Thai identification numbers, Mr Surapong said.

In light of this, the Interior Ministry has instructed all provincial governors and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s City Clerk to assist with the issue.

Moreover, a provincial committee will be set up in each province to take steps to help these children register their nationality, Mr Surapong said.

Each panel will be made up of school directors, heads of tambon public health units, kamnan and village heads, and community leaders, Mr Surapong said.

Of the more than 90,000 stateless schoolchildren, a total of 17,423 are in Chiang Mai, 12,824 in Chiang Rai, 9,332 in Tak, 5,896 in Kanchanaburi and 1,847 in Bangkok, Mr Surapong said.